“She’s in her room, dead,” the boy told the dispatcher.
Defense attorney Scott Calaway told the jury that Marquita Brown’s death was an accident.
“There’s simply no evidence he knowingly pulled the trigger,” Calaway said. “Damien Brown did not murder Marquita Brown and there is simply no evidence that he did.”
Damien Brown, 27, is charged with murder, two counts of felonious assault and one count of being a felon in possession of a weapon. He was convicted of a felony count of domestic violence in 2004, according to the indictment.
Marquita Brown, 25, the mother of two sons, was killed at her apartment at 4646 Midway Ave. U.S. Marshals arrested Damien Brown on a probation violation charge hours later at the Northland Village Apartment complex in Harrison Twp.
The two had been dating since 2008, but were not related to each other, assistant county prosecutor Jennifer Heapy told the jury.
Heapy told jurors that Marquita’s death was the classic result of escalating domestic violence. During the spring of 2010, her sister and a friend intervened when Damien was choking Marquita, Heapy said.
Heapy said Damien Brown told them he was going to return with his “chopper,” which she said was slang for a handgun.
About a week and a half before Marquita’s slaying, Damien went to the house and destroyed some of her belongings, including a stereo and televisions. He dropped coffee grounds on the furniture, and most significantly, Heapy said, he destroyed pictures of her children.
“It becomes the defendant’s calling card,” Heapy said.
After he shot Marquita in an upstairs bedroom, Damien fled down the stairs, flinging pictures of her sons from the walls, Heapy said.
The prosecution’s first witnesses Monday were law enforcement personnel concerning the 911 call, and a deputy coroner from the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office.
The trial is scheduled to continue today.
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